Tuesday, November 08, 2011

Papua New Guinea ranks poorly in Human Development Index survey

RESOURCES-rich Papua New Guinea has been ranked 153 out of 187
countries surveyed on the Human Development Index, falling below most of
its smaller South Pacific island neighbours, The National reports.
This ranking places PNG in the last of four rankings from very high human development to low human development.
Of the nine Pacific nations included in the survey, Melanesian neighbour
the Solomon Islands shares this category but is 11 places higher at
142.
Tiny Palau, which was included in the ranking only this year, and Tonga
ranked 49 and 90 respectively. They are the only island nations that are
part of the high human development ranked countries.
Australia is second and New Zealand is fifth on the ranking.
The 2011 report, themed Sustainability and equity: A better future for
all, argues that environmental sustainability could be most fairly and
effectively achieved by addressing health, education, income and gender
disparities together with the need for global action on energy
production and ecosystem protection.
The HDI is a yardstick that focuses on the human elements of
development, combining indicators of health and education with the more
traditional economic indicators.
It normally gives important insights that can be used to identify key development needs.
It said in PNG’s case, despite strident economic growth in the past six
years, the area of human development had largely been ignored.
Pacific Island countries have varied levels of human development.
Most of the Pacific Island countries appear in the “medium human development” category.
These include by rank Samoa (99), Fiji (100), FSM (116), Kiribati (122) and Vanuatu (125).
Three countries in the Pacific have higher than average life expectancy than other small island development states.
These are Palau 64, Tonga 63 and Fiji 62 years respectively

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